So ḥarām it’s ḥalāl

Government proposes potential sex offender legislation

In response to the recent spate of unsavoury allegations made against celebrities like Rolf Harris, Bill Cosby, and that guy from Glee, the Australian Government has proposed legislation that would require all current and former children’s entertainers to register as potential sex offenders. The bill furthers stipulates that the potential perpetrators would also have to remain within 100 metres of their closest school and/or park, so that their potential activity can be better monitored.

For some, however, the bill doesn’t go nearly far enough, having attracted criticism from a vast number of concerned parents for a variety of reasons. Chief among them is the fact that the database, which will only be accessible to the general public, could be mistaken for an online directory of babysitters and birthday party performers, such as magicians and clowns.

“The fact of the matter is that background checks and Working with Children (WWC) licences have failed to protect our kids, so what’s to say that this new bill will be any different?” said mother of two, Tina Vaughn, who recently divorced her husband after learning that he had been harbouring a deep, dark secret.

“I remember finding packets of macaroni in the pantry, and sticks of glue in the cupboard, and not thinking much of it at the time,” she recalled. “However, a few months later, I came home from snapping pictures of some creep at Westfield Knox shopping centre, only to find my husband juggling fruit right in front of our kids. Needless to say, I placed the sick bastard under civilian arrest and promptly alerted the Facebook authorities,” Vaughn said, before adding, “Hyper-vigilance is key. If you ignore the telltale signs, you do so at your own peril.”

Conversely, Chris Branson, a former friend and employee of Rolf Harris, has said he fully supports the bill. “After [Harris] was sentenced [to five years and nine months in prison], I realised I no longer had anything to lose by coming forward. So I did just that,” Branson revealed. “I think I can be forgiven for not saying something sooner, as my moral fortitude had been steadily weakened by having not existed in the first place. But, if this law is passed, I can rest assured that should I ever be confronted with a similar situation, I’ll be completely justified in turning a blind eye and relying on someone else, most likely the victims, to sort it out.”

“I’m not a psychic. I can’t predict future actions from past behaviour. It’s only in retrospect I noticed all the little things he did and said, like telling me he wanted to fuck kids,” Branson noted. “Then there was this other time where he made a vile and offensive joke about the Australian cricket team. We were driving to a corporate dinner and I said, ‘Rolf, you can’t tell that. The Baggy Greens are a national treasure’.”

Slamming the bill as totalitarian and an obvious attempt to punish people for pre-crimes, Greg Page, a man who wishes to remain anonymous, went on to suggest that if the bill were enacted, his life would be ruined.

“I’ll lose my job, my family, and my friends,” he said. “Not only will I have to go door-to-door informing my neighbours that I used to entertain children for a living, as if that isn’t embarrassing enough, but I’ll also be expected to tell them, ‘Oh, by the way, I may or may not be a rapist. Care for an autograph?’ It’s outrageous. What if they have No Salespeople signs up? I’ll look like a total buns-hole. With any luck, they’ll simply assume that Mormons have started wearing yellow skivvies, and I’ll be called a sausage-head and promptly asked to leave.”

“Speaking of which, why the fudge is there a religious exemption clause? I mean, first mandatory vaccines, now this? It’s absolute bull-sugar,” Page continued. “They [priests] play dress-ups, tell fairytales, and sing nursery rhymes. How are they not entertainers? It’s such a double standard. Why should those cunts get special treatment?”

Though Page claims to have been successfully rehabilitated after “going straight”, and turning his back on a life of The Wiggles, in 2012 he embarked on a world tour with the original “line-up”. Furthermore, he is known to have made regular appearances in re-reruns of both the aforementioned show, and the educational program Butterscotch’s Playground, which has lead many to believe he may be a recidivist.

“I’m a respected member of the community,” he said. “If you can’t trust the people on TV, whom can you trust?”

On the other side of the globe, however, the problem of what to do with potential sex offenders once they’ve been indicted is being dealt with in a rather novel way. Inspired by their friends and allies in Saudi Arabia, the US Government will be instituting it’s very own brand of shari’a (Islamic law), which will first come into effect with the criminal and civil proceedings against comedian and actor, Bill Cosby.

This body of laws, as traditionally practised in many of the Gulf States, not only dictates that the testimony of a woman is worth half that of a man’s [Article 2, Subsection 282], but that four male witnesses must be provided by the prosecution in order for a rape case to go to trial [Article 24, Subsections 4 and 13].

As Cosby will be testifying against himself, this shouldhave brought the total number of witnesses needed to three males (or six females). In the conversion of Muslim math to that of the Christian faith, however, the Supreme Court made a slight miscalculation, resulting in a ratio of 50 deponents to every 1 defendant.

Despite abiding by this ruling, and securing a confession from the accused, many still fear that a guilty verdict is highly unlikely. “If he’s acquitted, and chances are he will be, they’ll just move him to another sitcom,” lamented Gloria Allred, who is representing 29 of the supposed victims. “As a lawyer, I probably shouldn’t say this, but there really is no justice in this world.”